Riley Won't Look For Spot Behind Bench

Yes, Pat Riley admitted, there was a time he strongly considered the possibilities of coaching Shaquille O'Neal this coming season.

But that vision did not include O'Neal in the red, black and white of the Heat.

"I do think that that was what sort of led me to my little sojourn to Los Angeles," he said of his June 21 meeting at Los Angeles with Lakers owner Jerry Buss and General Manager Mitch Kupchak. "And I knew during that meeting that it wasn't going to happen."

Since bypassing the Lakers coaching vacancy that eventually went to former Rockets coach Rudy Tomjanovich, Riley insists the coaching bug is in the past tense.

From the moment he began negotiating the acquisition of O'Neal later that same June week, he said his responsibilities as Heat president made it clear he never again could also function as Heat coach.

"The day I knew that we were going to get Shaquille O'Neal is the day that I said to myself, `Now I'm really glad that I can sit in this chair and observe and really enjoy watching,'" Riley said as he prepared for Tuesday's formal introduction of O'Neal at what has turned into a Biscayne Boulevard block party. "Would I have loved to coach Shaquille sometime when I was coaching? It would have been a blessing."

Riley said the responsibilities now are to continue to rejuvenate a franchise from the front office, not usurp the sideline authority granted to Stan Van Gundy four days before the start of last season.

"Never. Never," he said when asked about a potential return to the Heat bench to guide O'Neal. "I have not even entertained that."

While some have questioned the wisdom of pairing a second-year coach with an 11-time All-Star, Riley takes the opposite view. More accurately, it is a distant view, of when he took over as a rookie Lakers coach in 1981, with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar already in his ninth NBA season.

"Now I get to be president of a team, with Shaquille here, allowing a young coach to develop with him, just like I did with Kareem," he said. "I think he's going to help Stan tremendously."

Riley stressed it is not as if Van Gundy will have to go it alone.

"I will have a lot of impact on Shaq, just like I have all year on all the players," he said, with his office at AmericanAirlines Arena strides from the building's auxiliary gym. "I'm very involved with them. And I'm on the practice court with them."

Yet, in the next breath, it is clear this is still very much a coach, one nearly seduced last month into a return to Los Angeles. While adamant he will not again be Heat coach, he remains a coach at heart.

"As a matter of fact," he said, "I might get back in the development drills. I'd love to teach on the court and work with players for half an hour or 20 minutes and stuff. I've done a little bit of that during the course of the year.

"So, I'm not too far away from that. But going down on the bench? No, it's not going to happen."